Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. – Vince Lombardi

LODD’s:

Jan 20, 2014

Fire engineer suffers sudden cardiac death at shift change – California.

Jan 20, 2007

After working three consecutive 24-hour shifts and fighting an extensive structure fire, a 47-year old career LT suffers sudden cardiac death during physical fitness training – California.

Jan 20, 2005

Career captain dies after running out of air at a residential structure fire – Michigan.

Jan 20, 2003

Career firefighter dies from injuries received during a chimney and structural collapse after a house fire – Pennsylvania.

HIstory by Historyplace.com:

January 20, 1649 – At the conclusion of the English Civil War, King Charles I was brought before a high court of justice at Westminster Hall on charges of treason. The Civil War had been fought over whether the King’s power was absolute or was limited by the powers of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell had led the Parliamentary forces to victory over the Royals. In the trial that followed, Charles was found guilty and condemned as “a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy” and was beheaded several days later in front of Whitehall Palace in London.

January 20, 1936 – King George V of England died at age 71. The grandson of Queen Victoria, he had reigned since 1910. He renamed his line as the House of Windsor, breaking his association with the family’s German line of descent. He was succeeded by his son King Edward VIII who abdicated in December and was succeeded by George VI.

January 20, 1942 – During the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solution (Endlösung) in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons.

January 20, 1945 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated to an unprecedented fourth term as president of the United States. He had served since 1933.

January 20, 1981 – Ronald Reagan became president of the United States at the age of 69, the oldest president to take office. During his inauguration celebrations, he announced that 52 American hostages that had been seized in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, were being released after 444 days in captivity.

January 20, 1996 – Yasir Arafat became the first democratically-elected leader of the Palestinian people with 88.1 percent of the vote.